Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/October 26

This is a list of selected October 26 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.

Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.

To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.

← October 25	October 27 →

Staging area

Images

Use only ONE image at a time

• 
  Press coverage of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral
• 
  Wyatt Earp
• 
  Charles de Salaberry
• 
  Chicago Theatre
• 
  Laurent Gbagbo
• 
  St Paul's Cathedral
• 
  Ida B. Wells
• 
  Edward Roye

Ineligible

Blurb	Reason
National Day in Austria (1955)	accuracy disputed
Angam Day in Nauru;	single source
; Feast day of Demetrius of Thessaloniki	unreferenced section
1708 – The final stone of St Paul's Cathedral, rebuilt after the original burned down in the 1666 Great Fire of London, was laid by the son of its architect, Christopher Wren.	refimprove section
1825 – The Erie Canal, connecting the Great Lakes with the Hudson River and providing a shortcut to the Atlantic Ocean through New York, was opened.	refimprove/unreferenced sections
1859 – The passenger ship Royal Charter, en route from Australia to England, was wrecked on the east coast of Anglesey, Wales, killing at least 459 people.	refimprove
1860 – Having defeated the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Italian military figure Giuseppe Garibaldi hailed King Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia as King of Italy.	refimprove section
1863 – The Football Association, one of the oldest governing bodies in association football, was founded at a pub in London's Great Queen Street.	unreferenced section
1881 – The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, one of the most famous shootouts of the American Old West, took place in Tombstone, Arizona, between Ike Clanton's gang and lawmen including Wyatt Earp.	Unreferenced paragraphs, many hobby websites used as refs
1909 – An Jung-geun, a Korean independence activist, assassinated Itō Hirobumi, the president of the Privy Council of Japan.	Lots of unreffed material
1937 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Xie Jinyuan and National Revolutionary Army soldiers began the Defense of Sihang Warehouse against waves of Japanese attackers during the Battle of Shanghai.	refimprove, primary sources
1940 – The North American P-51 Mustang, one of the most effective fighter aircraft for the Allies during World War II, made its first flight.	unreferenced text
1944 – World War II: In one of the largest naval battles in modern history, Allied forces defeated the Imperial Japanese Navy at the Battle of Leyte Gulf in the seas surrounding the Philippine island of Leyte.	refimprove section
1947 – Maharaja Hari Singh, ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, executed the Instrument of Accession to accede the princely state to the newly created India.	expansion
1964 – Australian serial killer Eric Edgar Cooke was executed, the last person to be hanged in the state of Western Australia.	multiple issues
1979 – President of South Korea Park Chung-hee was assassinated by the director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency and a long-time friend, Kim Jae-gyu.	Park: refimprove sections; Assassination: multiple issues
1985 – The Australian government returned ownership of Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock, to the local Pitjantjatjara people.	refimprove sections
1994 – Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty, settling relations between the two countries and pledging that neither would allow its territory to become a staging ground for military strikes by a third country.	refimprove section
2002 – Approximately 40 Chechen rebels and 130 hostages died when Russian forces stormed a theater building in Moscow to end a four-day hostage siege.	already featured on October 23

Eligible

• 1341 – The Byzantine army proclaimed chief minister John VI Kantakouzenos emperor, triggering a civil war between his supporters and those of John V Palaiologos, the heir to the throne.
• 1871 – Liberian president Edward James Roye (pictured) was overthrown in modern Africa's first coup d'état.
• 1892 – Ida B. Wells (pictured) began to publish her research on lynching in the United States, for which she was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2020.
• 1902 – A group of Russian explorers led by Baron von Toll left their camp on Bennett Island and disappeared without a trace.
• 1921 – The Chicago Theatre (pictured), the oldest surviving grand movie palace, opened.
• 1955 – Ngô Đình Diệm proclaimed himself president of the newly created Republic of Vietnam after defeating former emperor Bảo Đại in a fraudulent referendum supervised by his brother Ngô Đình Nhu.
• 1955 – The first buildings in the sacred Oyasato-yakata complex of the Japanese new religious movement Tenrikyo in Tenri, Nara, were completed.
• 1977 – Somali hospital cook Ali Maow Maalin began displaying symptoms of smallpox, becoming the last person known to be naturally infected by the disease.

• Born/died: | Cuthbert of Canterbury |d|760| Gómez González |d|1111| Michael Maestlin |d|1631| Sir John Gell, 1st Baronet |d|1671| C. W. Post |b|1854| William T. Anderson |d|1864| Elizabeth Cady Stanton |d|1902| Yamashita Yoshitsugu|d|1935

Notes

• Japanese battleship Musashi appears on October 24, so Battle of Leyte Gulf should not appear in the same year

October 26

George W. Bush signing the Patriot Act into law

• 1597 – Japanese invasions of Korea: Thirteen Korean ships commanded by Admiral Yi Sun-sin defeated a far larger Japanese invading fleet at the Battle of Myeongnyang in the Myeongnyang Strait.
• 1813 – War of 1812: British forces and Mohawk allies under Charles de Salaberry repulsed an American attempt to invade Canada.
• 1905 – The Saint Petersburg Soviet held its first meeting, becoming the first elected body in Russia to represent workers.
• 2000 – Following protests against military leader Robert Guéï, Laurent Gbagbo became the president of Ivory Coast.
• 2001 – President George W. Bush signed the Patriot Act into law (pictured), significantly expanding the authority of United States law enforcement agencies.

• John Basset (b. 1518)
• Carlo Collodi (d. 1890)
• Masaharu Iwata (b. 1966)
• Oro (d. 1993)

More anniversaries:

• October 25
• October 26
• October 27